It's More Important Than Ever: Speaking Out in NYC
(from Codepink, Women for Peace)
Explaining the decision to use three-year-old
information to raise the alert status to Code Orange,
George Bush told the country, "We are a nation in
danger."
And so we are.
Bush was talking about the threat of terrorism. And
it's real, to be sure. But just as real is the ominous
threat looming large over the vast majority of
Americans nationwide - the danger of losing a viable
future for our children due to the disastrous
environmental, fiscal, social, and international
policies that are the Bush Agenda. But this agenda
supplies more than a threat; far too many of us are
already living the loss of a viable present.
Countless numbers of our nation's children currently
find themselves in dilapidated school rooms with
outdated books and underpaid teachers, their promised
monies diverted to war. Our veterans find the thanks
they get for risking their lives is a greatly reduced
benefits package. Workers of all kinds are laboring in
an environment that until recently was unthinkable, no
longer guaranteed overtime pay or guaranteed a safe
working environment. The middle class and poor find a
downturn in their economic picture, with any upturn
only felt by the wealthiest 2%. And each and every one
of us breathe increasingly unsafe air and drink unsafe
water due to Bush¹s relaxation of more than 200
environmental regulations.
The threat of the Bush agenda extends beyond our
borders. Waging two wars in four years, the Bush
administration has irreparably harmed the lives of the
people of Afghanistan and Iraq, destroying
infrastructure and economies, killing thousands of
innocent people and torturing and detaining others.
And in exploiting the tragedy of 9.11, implementing a
policy of preemptive strikes and permanent war,
backing out of treaties years in the making from the
International Criminal Court Treaty to the Kyoto
Protocol, Bush has squandered the good will of the
world, violated international law, and imperiled
global security.
In his statement, George Bush also proclaimed, "We
have an obligation: When we find out something, we got
to share it."
Like George Bush, activists and protestors of
conscience, too, have an obligation. But, unlike
Bush, ours is an obligation that all of us have to one
another in this country and across the globe. And
unlike Bush, it is not an obligation cloaked in an
agenda of secrecy, lies and distortions, but it is an
agenda of the people to speak out and to spread the
word that another world outside of the Bush agenda is
possible. Enough is enough. It's time to take our
country back, to create policies that truly respect
those at home and abroad.
That's why CodePink will join countless thousands of
individuals, veterans, military families, faith-based
groups, workers' rights groups, and organizations of
all kinds who have come from across the country to
speak out in NYC on August 29th. And that, too, is
why CodePink has sounded a CodePink Alert in New York
City that will reverberate through the election and
beyond. But, leave your duct tape in the drawer. Our
alert is not one of color-coded, self-serving
fear-mongering. It doesn't ask us to be suspicious of
one another, it doesn't bully nations, and it doesn't
cater to the "haves and have-mores," Bush's
self-proclaimed base. It's a call for
compassion-in-action, for people of all ages and races
and agendas to set aside their differences and come
together to sift through the rhetoric, the
doublespeak, and the distortions and get down to
what's really going on and what we can do about it.
It's a call borne from the belief that in coming
together in peaceful protest we show George Bush, the
RNC, the country, and the world that so many of us say
no to the Bush agenda.
In our protest we represent the innumerable Americans
in every state who agree with us, those that the media
so often fail to give voice to. We speak for the
countless thousands who can't be with us, but who
stand in solidarity in events, protests, rallies, and
vigils nationwide. And in our protest we model the
democracy our country was founded on. We remind the
world that all of New York City and the U.S. is a free
speech zone and the First Amendment is our permit. And
in our protest we create a dialogue, an open door that
aspires to be accessible to all, one that can lead us
down a vastly different path than the treacherous one
the Bush agenda is attempting to drag us down.
Explaining the decision to use three-year-old
information to raise the alert status to Code Orange,
George Bush told the country, "We are a nation in
danger."
And so we are.
Bush was talking about the threat of terrorism. And
it's real, to be sure. But just as real is the ominous
threat looming large over the vast majority of
Americans nationwide - the danger of losing a viable
future for our children due to the disastrous
environmental, fiscal, social, and international
policies that are the Bush Agenda. But this agenda
supplies more than a threat; far too many of us are
already living the loss of a viable present.
Countless numbers of our nation's children currently
find themselves in dilapidated school rooms with
outdated books and underpaid teachers, their promised
monies diverted to war. Our veterans find the thanks
they get for risking their lives is a greatly reduced
benefits package. Workers of all kinds are laboring in
an environment that until recently was unthinkable, no
longer guaranteed overtime pay or guaranteed a safe
working environment. The middle class and poor find a
downturn in their economic picture, with any upturn
only felt by the wealthiest 2%. And each and every one
of us breathe increasingly unsafe air and drink unsafe
water due to Bush¹s relaxation of more than 200
environmental regulations.
The threat of the Bush agenda extends beyond our
borders. Waging two wars in four years, the Bush
administration has irreparably harmed the lives of the
people of Afghanistan and Iraq, destroying
infrastructure and economies, killing thousands of
innocent people and torturing and detaining others.
And in exploiting the tragedy of 9.11, implementing a
policy of preemptive strikes and permanent war,
backing out of treaties years in the making from the
International Criminal Court Treaty to the Kyoto
Protocol, Bush has squandered the good will of the
world, violated international law, and imperiled
global security.
In his statement, George Bush also proclaimed, "We
have an obligation: When we find out something, we got
to share it."
Like George Bush, activists and protestors of
conscience, too, have an obligation. But, unlike
Bush, ours is an obligation that all of us have to one
another in this country and across the globe. And
unlike Bush, it is not an obligation cloaked in an
agenda of secrecy, lies and distortions, but it is an
agenda of the people to speak out and to spread the
word that another world outside of the Bush agenda is
possible. Enough is enough. It's time to take our
country back, to create policies that truly respect
those at home and abroad.
That's why CodePink will join countless thousands of
individuals, veterans, military families, faith-based
groups, workers' rights groups, and organizations of
all kinds who have come from across the country to
speak out in NYC on August 29th. And that, too, is
why CodePink has sounded a CodePink Alert in New York
City that will reverberate through the election and
beyond. But, leave your duct tape in the drawer. Our
alert is not one of color-coded, self-serving
fear-mongering. It doesn't ask us to be suspicious of
one another, it doesn't bully nations, and it doesn't
cater to the "haves and have-mores," Bush's
self-proclaimed base. It's a call for
compassion-in-action, for people of all ages and races
and agendas to set aside their differences and come
together to sift through the rhetoric, the
doublespeak, and the distortions and get down to
what's really going on and what we can do about it.
It's a call borne from the belief that in coming
together in peaceful protest we show George Bush, the
RNC, the country, and the world that so many of us say
no to the Bush agenda.
In our protest we represent the innumerable Americans
in every state who agree with us, those that the media
so often fail to give voice to. We speak for the
countless thousands who can't be with us, but who
stand in solidarity in events, protests, rallies, and
vigils nationwide. And in our protest we model the
democracy our country was founded on. We remind the
world that all of New York City and the U.S. is a free
speech zone and the First Amendment is our permit. And
in our protest we create a dialogue, an open door that
aspires to be accessible to all, one that can lead us
down a vastly different path than the treacherous one
the Bush agenda is attempting to drag us down.
posted by Rev. Rick Mitchell, PhD at 11:17 PM
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